Jolly Fun Chin Wagging

Last night was the November WARGs meeting, which featured the much anticipated SDC workshop [the SCD is Kapcon's Scenario Design Competition, one-off 3 hour RPG scenario writing competition]. Debbie and I zoomed down to the meeting, via Debbie's parents place (collecting jewellery left behind over the weekend, and having coffee and delicious freshly baked scones). We arrived on time (ie before 7pm) but announcements had already started. I don't think we missed more than a couple of minutes though.
The talk was run by Dale, and there were about ten people in attendance. It was very interesting, hearing Dale talk about the process of marking scenarios, approaches to writing them, and approaches to writing in general. Dale obviously has a lot of experience with writing, and has clearly thought about it a good deal. He had some very interesting advice and insight into the whole process, which was cool. He was also an organised and entertaining speaker, which made the evening very pleasant.

I talked for a few minutes about entering the SDC, what it has been like and how I went about it. A couple of people seemed surprised that I currently have about 5 SDC entries open. I guess that might seem a little ambitious/obsessive. There are basically 5 files on my computer, each one with a varying level of actual work done on it, each one a potential SDC entry. I'm aiming to get 2 fully done this year, and keep the rest for later. I've already run 3 of the games, 2 are ideas yet to be put into practice. This means that 3 of the games already have a good level of conceptual completeness, but none are yet fully written up. I figure it's probably better to aim to do 2, and do them well, than it is to rush through 3. Oddly, it's the one I started in February (January?) that's likely to be left to last. Huh.

Anyhoos, I never have to teach my senior classes again, all going well. That's pretty hella cool. They have classes tomorrow and Friday, but I'm off doing some kind of menial labour for the prizegiving, so I don't teach them. So, I guess, I've now taught a full year for 2 classes. Weird. The juniors are still around for several more weeks (until the 3rd of December, maybe?), so I still have to teach. And Senior Prizegiving, followed by Junior Prizegiving, will keep me plenty busy. But the seniors are gone for me, now. I hope they do well in their exams - for their sake, and for my self-esteem as a teacher. I know that some of them have learned some things in English this year, but there are quite a few about whom I am unsure...